Thursday, January 29, 2015

While walking down the steps from the office to the ground floor, I saw a cobweb in the corner of a window sill. There it was - a laced universe spun out of something, glinting in warm sunlight. It was very beautiful. Beyond beautiful. Could make you forget to breathe for a second. It was something that a creature called home. It was something another creature would sweep off in just a second. But there it was, being held in the light. So many lovely things are seen when the sun comes out.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Without the drama, there is the void. Not peace. But initially, until peace gets infused with its multifurled sweetness, there is the void. And where there is the void, there is fear. To avoid the fear, there is drama. To distract. To avoid. To make mythic what is blatantly true. Why the drama? Because without it, there will be truth. And that truth will be nothing.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

After making a pronouncement that I will only read fiction and not non-fiction, a colleague at work recommended Sheryl Richardon's 'Lean In'. I downloaded the book and started on it. It seems very compelling. Compelling enough to put aside Norwegian Wood by Murakami. So I have eaten my words.

I love the Pocket app. You can save a webpage onto that and then access it anywhere, even when there is no Internet connection.

I also love Pinterest. There is some really beautiful stuff out there. My favorites are the quirky messages that are put up in funky fonts.

A friend and her family had come over the weekend. Although I worked a little bit over the weekend, it was really fun being with her twin little girls. Watching children play is so soothing. A little like watching fish in an aquarium.

Situation with cook is getting a little bothersome. Today she chopped up pears along with the sticker.

Went to Euriska at KP with my friend and her family. It's a really swish place and they say that they serve Greek food but they don't. Much of the stuff has the Italian tomato sauce on it. My pals were disappointed with their Gyros and Stuffed Bell peppers. I liked my four mushroom soup and souvlaki.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Today I parked my car in the usual spot. I sat inside waiting for the song on the radio to finish. I really like that song. Somewhere ahead, the shadow of a tree lay on the brick-laid road like a pool of comfort. A crow hopped into that shade. I think it decided to fly but then it decided not to. So just as it had taken flight, it soared a feet above the ground, then fluttered somewhat and landed again. That moment, when it soared - with its wings pointed down, en pointe, it looked as if it were doing ballet. It's body is a little taut with the shade of the tree creating a diffused halo around it. That moment when it soared, it wasn't a bird with black feathers. It was a quiet bird of paradise that simply showed the feathers it liked best.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Today I complete three years in Pune. It was a good decision, to move out of Bombay. I wanted an experience that was new, fresh, and expansive. Three years in Pune has not been easy. In fact, it has been far tougher than in anyother place I've stayed. Well, the other cities have been Bombay and Delhi. But then I stayed in three different places in Bombay. So in a sense I've been around.

I was in Pune when I had decided to marry. Last year, I was in Pune when I got divorced. So much has happened but in some sense, things have come a full circle. I have learnt a lot here. Having my own house, having the experience of walking to work, of having a hill close by to walk to, learning yoga, slicing a kiwi for the first time, sitting in the balcony with a steaming cup of tea with nothing but sunshine, birds, and treetops for company...yes, it has been good.

Three years in Pune. If the experience had a shape, it would be lots of colourful dots arranged in a circle with the loop not completely closed.

Last night, I had driven to Koregaon Park with a friend. It was a spur of the moment plan. It's nice to have a car that works, a tank that's full(ish), roads that are reasonably empty, and a place like Koregaon Park with street corners and lanes that seem to be in a different time-zone altogether. There, it seemed like Christmas was still trailing in. It felt like a couple of weeks before Christmas when the world is just winding down and getting ready to put on something sparkly and head out. We had an Egyptian dukka fondue at Moshe's and then some malai ice-cream and strawberries at Naturals. That combination of snow-white and plush red is so gorgeous! Looked better than it tasted but I'm not complaining.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Ember turned the snow globe. Soft snow bits swirled around
the tiny Berlin wall. She ran her fingers across the inscription on the glass: ‘The
things that are most important must not be at the mercy of things that are
least important.’ - Goethe.

What was most
important was that book in her head, “5 ways to a rainbow.” What was least important was her list of to-dos
that she’d scribbled into her Moleskin. Every undone item from the day before
would percolate and spill on to the next day’s list. The usual suspects were
mainly two:

(1)Write one chapter

(2)Contact Ma

She would underline point no. 1 and put stars around it
every single day. All this living in lurches and bouts – she believed – was to
ultimately help her write that book. She even had the premise ready and all
that. It would be the coming-of-age story of a little girl who grows up in a
small village. During her life, she sees how a library and a pawn shop changed
her village and the destiny of its inhabitants. The library would…oh wait,
there’s no point in writing about this because Ember hasn’t written about it
yet. Her ideas ‘5 Ways to a rainbow’ stayed in a corner of her being- ships
with folded sails by the shore.

The second item, ‘Contacting Ma’ was a little tricky. It had
been 8 years since her mother had last visited her. Ember had opened the door
and stood trembling with her fists clenched. In a voice choked with pain and
fear, Ember had said, “Either Papa or me, Ma.” Her mother had kissed her and
left. Ember hadn’t responded to her mother’s texts or calls after that. A few
months later, the communication had stopped. Sometimes, she would sit in front
of her plot notes, getting ready to type out her story. And the memory and hurt
of her mother leaving would roll over her heart and gut, blocking out any kind
of words that may want to come out.

At times, it would pain her so much, to sit like deadweight
in front of a story, not being able to even look at the page fully because she’d
see it unformed and helpless. Every day, a hundred demands on her time would
undrape the one thing she valued so truly. So much.

She’d get up and make coffee. Or glut on sliced cheese. Or
peck at the trivialities that Twitter and Facebook fed her. With each detour,
time would slip. The sky would turn pink and orange, the sun would set and it
would be time to call it a day.

Then there would be days when she would start writing. But a
phrase here or a plot formation there would remind her of things: past storms,
friends on a swing set, painted nails that got chipped when she’d helped her
father fix the door. Door. Father. “Either Papa or me, Ma.” And the writing
would stop.

Then, of course, there was the insomnia. That scratchy, restless
piece of itchiness that spreads through the blood, thickening, tiring muscles,
knotting up fatigue and anxiety and in general, being a nuisance every night.
There she’d be on the bed, breathing and feeling her throat. Her father, as a
joke one evening, had tied a string around her neck and asked her to get down
on all fours. “See, I told you”, he’d shown her mother. “She is my pet.” Ember was six at the time.

Ember found it unfair that she should find it so hard to come
out with her damn story. It seemed as if, somewhere, at some point in time, her
being had gambled with the Gods and what was at stake and lost was her ability
to write. It wasn’t all downhill though. Sometimes, Ember thought that help
came in the form of ordinariness. Of days that kept streaming in, cloaking her
life with 24 soft-hours in which she could do anything. If she just let it all
unravel – the pain, the shame – things would get better. Day would follow night
and night would follow day and within the points of that certainty, some days
would bring magic. In simple, ordinary ways, she could simply let that ordinariness
cloak her. On days that Ember did not kill herself, she would write.

One morning, she did. She asked the demons to wait. She
asked the gods to stay out. Ember dusted off the half-chewed, mostly forgotten
story and very haltingly, wrote one word. And then another word. And then one
more after that and so on. Hours later, a quiet moon shone through the window.
Ember got up to warm some soup on the stove. Tomorrow another day would come.
Hopefully, she’d remember that things that are most important should not be at
the mercy of things that are least important.

She turned the snow globe again. The bits of snow swirled
around Berlin. Hadn’t that city brought down the wall?

Thursday, January 15, 2015

I stepped out of the house at 7:15 a.m. - nearly forty-five minutes later than I usually go for a walk. It was freezing. The cold sucker-punched me. I yawned and there was a little cloud of fog floating out of my mouth. It always seems like magic. Maybe one day I'll take a different turn to the main road and I'll find a snow-capped mountain in Pune. Who knows? Cold days crackle with magic somedays.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

My friend and I drove down there after work which in itself felt like a novelty. The drive was of course lovely because it was Koregaon Park and it was also Tuesday and there was a sweet breeze shimmying through the skies. At Moshe's, we tried a cheese platter which is quite lovely. There are slivers of some four or five slices of cheese, nice warm bread, crisp wheat-crackers, olives, and a stalk of asparagus that we nibbled off later. The cheeses were really good. I don't like cheese so much but the varieties that were offered were really good. Mostly mellow and smooth, although one of them had a slightly sharp taste. There was a side of fried potato skins which were also crisp
and nicely seasoned.

The dessert platter came with some very tiny, dainty
looking things which seemed to have been made in a doll-house, considering the
portions. All of them were non-chocolate options – some kind of a pistachio
financier (yes – that’s a type of dessert apparently – wish I’d known that when
I studied Economics – would have taken the sting off many things), slim
rolls of baklava, a white chocolate ganache, and this – THIS – was a surprise –
two thin blocks of kulfi with a dried rose petal syrup. The kulfi and the syrup
were spectacular! The kulfi was the thickest, creamiest kulfi ever – with no
bubbles on the surface, so smooth – and strongly spiced with cardamom.

Monday, January 12, 2015

And just like that, January 2015 has slipped into two digits. Yesterday I sat sipping tea on my bed, looking at the floating constellations of motes dancing on a sunbeam. It feels like the year has hit it's stride. From now, one day will roll into another. Smooth, easy, unremarkable, nice. But let's see.

A year or so ago, I was filled with so much anxiety about what's coming next, what's the meaning of it all, when will all this end. I don't know why I put myself through all that. It felt as if some cosmic memo had come to everybody on earth and I missed it because I had gone to the loo. Anyway, to mitigate all of that drama, I was reading a lot of self-help books. Many, many of them. Poring over pages expecting text to leap out and tell me that it was all going to be okay. The books, themselves, weren't too bad. Your Soul's Plan by Robert Shwatz was particularly moving. You Can Heal you Life by Louise Hay is one of my favorite books. If you do get this, begin with the last chapter - the part where she writes about her life. There is so much kindness there. I hope that someday when I look back at these days, I'll remember them just as kindly.

I also read copiously on chakra meditation and stuff. Maybe it was the panic with which I was reading that robbed me of the pleasure that reading normally brings. But things change. Slowly, days would begin without me getting angry or anxious over whether my help will show up on time or not. (They didn't and I let them go.) Or be very upset because someone at work wasn't following my directions. (They hadn't understood me clearly.) Slowly, days got a teensy bit easier. That's when I picked up a novel - all drenched in characters and plots and moods and narratives and voices and dialogues. A novel. All that self-help literature where I had to take responsibility for my thoughts and feelings and whatever had parched me a little. And then the novel plumped me right back.

I love fiction. It sustains me. Whatever I need somes from in there. Always has. I don't know why I forget that fiction, for me, has always been enough. This year, I'm going to glut on my storybooks.

Thursday, January 08, 2015

There was a glitch with my Tab. There was some kind of a short circuit and the people at the service centre said that it had to be reformatted. I didn't have back-up because I am the sort that never does. All my books were gone. All. my. books. I had bought some from Kindle and downloaded some from the Internet and some my friends had passed on. And I lost everything. I wasn't so worried about the pictures. I don't like taking too many pictures in any case. But books. Books on my Kindle App. I'd bought Anais Nin and had downloaded Oleander Girl and ripped through Gone Girl on my Kindle. No.

Then I got my tab back and there was no data. So I had to get data. My debit card is not working so I had to withdraw money. There was only one cheque in the cheque book and so I had to go to the bank to apply for one. I don't do Net banking. Anyway, I finally got my prepaid Vodafone to work. Whose 3G services, I must say, are spectacularly unpredictable here. But it worked. I downloaded the Kindle app. In the time that I have not been online, apparently Samsung has its own Kindle App that gives you a free book every month. I checked. I got my books back. They were there. The world feels soft and smooth now. Bliss. Gorgeous bliss.

When I thought I'd lost all my books on the Kindle, I thought that even though so much was gone, I got the clean slate that I had wished for towards the end of last year. It just came true with regard to something else. But then I wanted them back. Even though I was thinking that it was finally a chance for me to get a proper curated collection. Still, somewhere every time, I touched my tab, I prayed. For the books to come back. And today, I turned on the Kindle and there they were.

I know it is not a magical thing to have happened. I know that it is probably routine. But when I found my books on the Kindle again, it felt like everything I had loved and waited for so much - all of it just crossed the road and came back to me.